


Holding On

by OMGitsgreen



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Baby Jaeha went through a lot, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Gen, Gigan being a great mom, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRILLZ, Jaeha-centric, Past Abuse, Pirate Mom ftw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 16:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6527920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OMGitsgreen/pseuds/OMGitsgreen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Flashes of rainwater, fingertips dragged over his cheek, and a cold stone wall pressed against his back told the remnants of a tale. What tale, Jaeha could only try to gather up into incoherent nonsense but he ached into the very root of his teeth." Jaeha reflects as the consequences of his adolescence catches up to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gloriousrumpoflife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriousrumpoflife/gifts).



> So I was going to write something really cute and fluffy, but then I got another idea and since it was my girl Grillz' birthday and she’s the queen of Jaeha teenage angst, I would give her something in my vein of interpretation on the topic.
> 
> Happy birthday Grillz, you glorious other half of mine, the Hemingway to my Fitzgerald, enjoy!

Jaeha was tired but he couldn’t sleep.

Not just a usual kind of tired, a pervasive, crippling tiredness that seeped into his bones like the coldest of sea mist and numbed his skin and mind. He wasn’t hungry either, even though he hadn’t ate. Every time he had tried to eat the hunger had gathered up in the pit of his belly, when he had tried to swallow something it turned to grainy ash on his tongue and teeth and the pure and revolting wave of nausea sent him drowning in a sea of disgust.

Jaeha could slip into a half-aware daze, a dark shallow somewhere in the half-conceived corner he always went to. It had always been there when he needed it and he had constantly needed it, somewhere where he could go and undo himself for only a little while. But his heart beating pounding in his ears and the chattering of his teeth jarred him any time that he attempted to drift off deeper into that darkness.

“You found him? What the fuck did he get into?”

“We don’t know, captain—“

Where was he? Jaeha thought, delirious. He was laying on a bed, an actual bed. When had he managed to get one of those? He hadn’t—

“His spirit is sick, Captain. Some people get this way!” Someone’s voice came off to the side, and Jaeha was beginning to understand he was in a room, somewhere. The presences of a few people dimly registered like shadows on a darkened wall before it thinned out to one.

The voices faded out as another wave of chattering and shaking jerked him once more he felt so cold, so cold, though the sheets stuck to him with sweat. His spirit was sick? Jaeha thought absently. He didn’t even know he had a spirit, but maybe that was another thing he lacked. Jaeha wondered if it had rotted away with Garou in the mud and could feel a weird smile twitching over his lips (which may have been more akin to a grimace).

Time passed in chunks of time that Jaeha couldn’t understand. But he realized eventually rather absently that the twitching had mostly stilled and his heart calmed. A hand gently pressed a wet cloth to his neck, jolting him from his feverish half-sleep. A woman looked at him and he stared back owlishly—he knew her. Recognized her, but everything else about her felt very far away, disorganized and disjointed, and disintegrated when he reached for it.

“What’s your name?” The woman asked gruffly, but her hands betrayed her sweetness as she washed his face.

Name? His name? What a weird question, he thought oddly miffed. His name didn’t matter to anyone, only his title. His name didn’t matter, it was only brat waste-of-space what gave you the right to take everything from me that mattered. If he spoke it, he knew it would break this enchantment. It would ruin this like he ruined everything for everyone. (But he also wondered if she would say it sweetly, she might and that would have made Jaeha happy because that would have been beautiful. Beautiful in a way that girls and wine and the drugs couldn’t be because he would be able to hold onto that forever. Jaeha would keep that moment safe in that corner where he kept everything that was precious and ripe and beautiful and his and hold it dearly forever.)

Jaeha parted his lips but only ash and grit and a hiss of air was released. He tried to lick his lips, to gain some moisture, and found them sweet. The woman had been passing honey between his lips to keep him alive—her name. He grabbed it from the wind and croaked,

“…Captain…Gigan?”

“I asked what you name was,” Captain Gigan said with a sort of practiced annoyance as she continued to bath his face, and reached for the tea pot. “But at least you haven’t lost all the sense in your head during this little escapade.”

Flashes of rainwater, fingertips dragged over his cheek, and a cold stone wall pressed against his back told the remnants of a tale. What tale, Jaeha could only try to gather up into incoherent nonsense but he ached into the very root of his teeth. His power felt faint, but still steady and pulsing in the twitching mass of muscle which was his foot. Captain Gigan took the time to rearrange the bed and sheets as the gravity and how or why he had ended up in this bed hit him with full force. Guilt crippled him, a revulsion of his own weakness made his head spin and made him so angry that he wanted to throw things and tear out all of the scales on his leg one by one. But that all seemed so distant in comparison to the fear. 

“I don’t know where I was,” Jaeha gasped, the blank and dark spaces in his memories the complete and utter void of it all terrifying him.

“One of the boys found you in an alley by the brothel,” Gigan supplemented, holding a cup to his lips to silence his panic. He gulped it down, though the nausea again struck him and doubled him over. “Do you have any idea what you took?”

“…I don’t know,” Jaeha said, squinting as the physical effort of the thinking extended him too far. He was tired, his lack of sleep pulled his eyelids down with force, keeping everything bound in a haze of mist.

“Well whatever it is, you’ve been going through the after effects for a while now. Your conscious now, but you aren’t out of the woods yet,” Gigan said as she lit the tobacco up in her pipe, the scent comforting as she smoothed out her skirts.

“I’m so sorry,” Jaeha murmured, though he knew that apology wasn’t ever going to be enough for anything. Gigan looked at him with the cool grace of her gaze.

“Don’t apologize to me, I can tell that you are sorry enough,” Gigan told him resigned. “I can only hope you will make the right decisions, I have no claim to having you make them. That’s your freedom.”

“I love you, Captain,” Jaeha told her with all of the meaning that he had. Captain Gigan just rolled her eyes, but settled in for the long night beside him.

“Your flirting technique hasn’t gotten any better.” 

Finally, in the first time in days, Jaeha found himself falling asleep.


End file.
